Other Characteristics of Love Addiction: Part II

8. Our self-esteem is critically low, and deep inside we do not believe we deserve to be happy. Rather, we believe we must earn the right to enjoy life.
9. We have a desperate need to control people and our relationships, having experienced little security in childhood. We mask our efforts to control people and situations as “being helpful.”
10. In a relationship, we are much more in touch with our dream of how it could be than the reality of our situation.
11. We are addicted to people and emotional pain.
12. We may be predisposed emotionally and often bio-chemically to becoming addicted to drugs, alcohol, and/or certain foods, particularly sugary ones.
13. By being drawn to people with problems that need fixing, or by being enmeshed in situations that are chaotic, uncertain, and emotionally painful, we avoid focusing on our responsibility to ourselves.
14. We may have a tendency toward episodes of depression, which we try to forestall through the excitement provided by an unstable relationship.
15. We are not attracted to people who are kind, stable, reliable and interested in us. We find such “nice” people boring. Robin Norwood http://www.theinstituteforsexualhealth.com/ish-articles/addicted-to-love/

We are addicted to our thoughts. We cannot change anything if we cannot change our thinking.” Santosh Kalwar